Two days ago Joseph Lubin, Ethereum Co-Founder called the bottom. More accurately he believes the bottom is in.
Most cryptos are above recent lows, but this rally has been sinking fast.
Ethereum 2018-12-27
Mish “There is no reason to believe cryptocurrencies will ever be embraced or widely used, and many reasons to believe they won’t.” And if they aren’t, they will trend towards zero over time.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Rather than “no reason,” there are instead plenty of reasons to believe crypto currencies will be more widely used in the future. They certainly have advantages over Gold in many arenas, even if not all. Convenience, anonymity, lack of physical/geographic vulnerability to theft etc. All of which are valuable properties, unless one believes difficulty to use, ease of being spied on and ease of being robbed are some sort of benefits.
I am a believer in cryptos, I do think they have their place – as soon as one sends a Bitcoin from one’s wallet to another one for the first time, it really hits one that one has become one’s own bank and is now able to transfer currency extremely cheaply and extremely fast without having to rely on middlemen – it’s glorious!
But your comment leaves something to be desired. I see gold and cryptos as complementary assets, not necessarily as competing ones. In terms of anonymity or vulnerability to theft, cryptos may well be inferior to gold. This year alone, hackers stole literally billions in cryptocurrency (the single biggest theft netted $560 million if memory serves). Surveillance made easy, thy name is blockchain. Every transaction ever made is forever recorded in a censorship-resistant manner. While this is an ingenious solution to the trust problem, it has also spawned an entire industry of crypto-detective companies who are now selling their tracking services to governments – and they evidently do find many of their targets, judging from the flood of indictments being handed out left and right. Truly anonymous privacy coins like Monero and Zcash are all in danger of eventually getting regulated to death by overzealous governments – and it is a lot easier to sell gold on the black market than a cryptocurrency that can no longer be traded at an exchange. As an aside, gold may be less convenient, but it is inter alia resistant to power outages and internet “kill switches”.
I don’t believe in crypto. But you know our governments with insane monetary policies might actually make them stay for good. Ironic